My Life Would Suck Without You
by ThexHushxSound
Summary: **RE-WRITTEN** After the accident in the dredge, Ryan's parents move him to Colorado, leaving Sarah alone in Skeleton Creek. The body count is rising and time is running out as they race to unravel the mystery of who...or what haunts the dredge.
1. 93 Million Miles

**Authors Note: **** I TOLD YOU I WOULD BE BACK!!!!!!! Were not starting TOTALLY over…I just need to tweak a few things. Like it says in the summary, now RYAN is in Colorado and SARAH is in Skeleton Creek. It makes more sense this way I think :) Anyways…please read and review!!!!!**

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does.

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon Monday 2:48am Sarah POV**

It all started with a name. The name Skeleton Creek never failed to interest me. Why give such a sleepy and seemingly harmless town such a haunting name. I've always been curious in nature. I guess that's why I have a need to film everything. That's how it started. I met Ryan in 6th grade. We were eleven and both considered outcasts. We clicked right away and from then on were inseparable. We got into our share of trouble. I knew his parents didn't approve of him being friends with me, but he never complained and neither did I. Then that one day on the bus, roughly---was it only two months ago? I asked the million dollar question that pulled us into this mess.

"Why Skeleton Creek?"

We researched it, me more passionately than him and all roads led to the same place, the dredge

Oh god, the dredge. I don't want to think about it. Of course I, being the adventurous and painfully curious person that I was, needed to check it out. Ignoring the warnings of Ryan and all of the townspeople that we talked to I went there by myself. That's when I saw him and he saw me, the ghost of Old Joe Bush. I ran as fast as I could back to my house and uploaded what I saw onto my website. I sent Ryan the password and he watched it. At first he thought I was messing with him. That night we went back. I was filming, looking around trying to film as much of the dredge as I could. I should have stayed with Ryan. He went to one of the upper levels of the dredge. I heard him call out and then the deafening crash. Fear clogging my system I ran to where he had been seconds ago, only to see that he had flipped back over the railing and had fell a good 40 feet. He wasn't moving…

"_RYAN!" Sarah's voice echoed around the empty dredge. _

_She ran down the wood steps and dropped to her knees next to her friend's prone form._

"_Ryan! C'mon Ryan, get up! Talk to me! Ryan!"_

_At the frantic sound of her voice, Ryan's eyes open a little._

"_Sarah?"_

"_Thank God, Ryan!" She said leaning over him._

_Ryan was in so much pain, he felt like he was going to pass out._

"_God, Sarah my leg."_

_She looked at his left leg and then quickly looked away. It was contorted at an odd angle and she thought she saw blood._

"_It's ok. I'm gonna get you outta here. You're gonna be fine. I'm gonna call go get help and then we'll get you to a hospital."_

_Sarah made to get up, but Ryan grabbed her wrist painfully tight._

"_Please don't leave."_

_Sarah sat kneeled back down next to him._

"_No problem." She took checked her pockets frantically for her phone and when she finally found it, she made sure it was charged. Thanking God that it was she called 911, followed by calls to hers and Ryan's parents. _

"_Everything's gonna be fine Ryan. I promise." Sarah said trying to convince both of them._

After that night, our parents had flipped. It wasn't surprising really. We weren't allowed to see each other anymore. Both sets of parents put special filters on our computers, took away our cell phones, and watched us like we were lab rats. That didn't stop us though. We kept in touch. I remember the e-mails and the videos. I even remembered how good it felt to actually see him that night…

_Sarah waited anxiously in the side alley behind Ryan's house. She shifted her weight from one foot to another and waited for her friend to emerge. They were going to the dredge. It was all set up. Her video camera was sending the feed straight to her computer. If they weren't back by 8:00 the next morning, her father, the local news station, and the sheriffs department would all know what happened to them. Ryan finally came out and Sarah helped him into her car (he was still in the cast from the broken leg) after throwing her arms around him. They drove into the familiar woods and started into the dredge. _

It's all a blur to me from there, that is, until Ryan told me to turn off the flashlight…

"_What was that? Ryan whispered as they walked through the dredge._

"_What?" Sarah asked, stopping abruptly._

"_Turn off the light!" Ryan hissed, pulling Sarah through a door and against a wall._

_Sarah did so and the two of them listened in fear as the sound of footsteps drew nearer. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped in the doorway and the skeleton face of Old Joe Bush looked into the small room. They couldn't tell whether it had seen them or not. The ghost finally left, locking the door behind it. Ryan and Sarah glanced at each other, both of them wondering just how much oxygen they actually had in this tiny room. Sarah picked up her video camera and turned it toward her._

"_This is Sarah Fincher and Ryan McCray. We're in a room inside the dredge. Something locked us in. If you're watching this, help us. Just—just help us. She pleaded. Then the battery on the camera went dead._

_Sarah let out a shuddery breath and leaned back on the wall behind her, closing her eyes._

"_This is all my fault." She said, rare tears slipping down her cheeks._

_Ryan didn't agree or disagree with her; He pulled her over to him so she was leaning against his chest and hugged her._

"_We'll get out of here" He whispered against her hair._

_Sarah wished she could believe him._

Since we couldn't get out of the dredge, the sheriff and our parents came to get us right after they got the video. By the time they got there, according to Ryan I had already passed out from lack of oxygen and he hadn't been far behind. You could guess that although our parents had been ecstatic to see us alive, they were furious that we had disobeyed them and came to the dredge. For Ryan's parents, it was the last straw. When he was released from the hospital, they told him to pack his stuff. The McCray's left Skeleton Creek, Oregon that night. I never got to say goodbye to Ryan. They moved to Canon City, Colorado, and I've been miserable ever since. I miss Ryan so much that it's painful. As a plus, I constantly feel like I'm being watched, and not only by my parents. The ghost of Old Joe Bush is still watching Ryan and me. He won't give up and we have to stop him, whatever it takes.

My name is Sarah Fincher, and this is my story.


	2. 20 Dollar Nosebleed

**A/N: I'm re-writing all of the previous chapters and adding one new one today. I should be updating again sometime this weekend. I have to start getting back on track with my other stories too, so I can't promise updates will always be this fast…this is just me apologizing for such a long break.**

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does.

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon– Sarah's School – 8****th**** period**

I was walking in the woods. With no real destination in mind, I wandered around aimlessly, no desire to actually go anywhere. Suddenly, a noise cut through the silence. It was the sound of metal hitting metal, of a wrench hitting rusty gears. I felt it then, the cold air, the pressure that crushed down on me, the prickling feeling of being watched. I began to run, the demon not far behind. I could feel his cold breath; feel his fleshless, hollow eye sockets burning a hole into me, those horrible sunken in eyes always leering at me from the darkness. He was everywhere. I tripped over something and went sprawling to the ground. Panicking, I looked back and gasped. I had tripped over Ryan's lifeless body.

"RYAN!" I shrieked as I jerked awake in the middle of my French class.

The other kids started to laugh and Ms. Brandish, the teacher, was looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement on her face. I turned a bright shade of red and murmured an apology. The teacher walked to her desk and took out her pass book.

"Alright, settle down kids. Miss Fincher, go to the nurse and get that bloody nose cleaned up."

I packed my stuff and walked to the front of the room, taking the pink slip from the teacher's outstretched hand. She gave me a stern look.

"Hopefully my lesson won't put you to sleep next time."

I nodded sheepishly, knowing that she meant 'stay awake next time , or you're getting detention' I went to the nurse and after being given the Spanish Inquisition about my frequent nosebleeds, left for my locker. After I had the correct books, I ran to the nearest girls' bathroom. After I made sure no one was in it, I locked the door with shaking hands. Dialing the familiar number, I waited. He picked up after three rings.

"Sarah?"

"Ryan." I said, relieved as I sat down on one of the sinks.

"Are you okay?" he asked

"Yeah, yeah just another nosebleed is all. The nurse thinks that someone is beating me. She practically asked me flat out if my parents were abusive. Although how they would beat me and I'd get the nosebleed now, I will never know." I rambled trying to keep him on the line as long as possible. Ryan sighed on the other line.

"Hang in there alright?"

"I'm trying, really I am it's just so hard to act like everything's so _normal_ when it's anything but." I said, exasperated.

Ryan sighed again. He's been doing a lot of that lately I noticed.

"I know. It's been hard on me too. Just try not to think about it. Think about absolutely anything else. Anything bet the dredge—"

The second he said the word 'dredge', the line started crackling. I shivered. Joe Bush was watching us again. He was always watching. Ryan must have noticed too, because his voice became urgent.

"I gotta go. Stay safe, don't do anything stupid." He said.

I rolled my eyes.It was kind of hard to do that when I had a pissed off, skeleton-looking… _thing_ constantly on my case.

"Sarah, did you hear me? Don't do anything stupid."

"Yeah I heard you. Don't worry _Mom_." I said sarcastically.

Ryan laughed a little and I smiled.

"I'll talk to you soon, okay?" he said reassuringly.

"Ok, bye." I said.

He went to hang up but I stopped him.

"Ryan!"

"Yeah?"

"You be careful too, okay?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." He said after a pause.

We said our goodbyes again and the call was terminated. I deleted the call from my phones history, praying that Ryan remembered to do the same. I slowly made my way to my car, wondering how much longer I could pretend I was okay before going insane.

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**Canon City, Colorado– Ryan's House – Monday- 1:45pm**

An hour. An hour had passed since Sarah had called, and I was still pacing. I had been pacing for an hour. There were too many questions. The obvious ones of course, like why Joe Bush is haunting the dredge, What was the purpose of the crossbones, was Joe Bush murdered or was it an accident. Then there were the not so obvious questions like why Joe Bush was still attacking Sarah and me, even though we weren't investigating the dredge anymore, why my father ad the symbol for gold tattooed on his shoulder, and why I didn't seem so afraid anymore. I'm not going to lie; I'm worried about Sarah, worried of course being a vast understatement. I looked over at the University of Phoenix brochure on my desk. I had a plan. High school was almost over, and with college just around the corner, my parents had agreed to let me look at out of state schools by myself. I wasn't looking at any in Oregon, that would be to obvious, but Phoenix wasn't that far from Skeleton Creek and that's where I planned to go on this little road trip. Sarah just had to stay safe for another week. Just one more week and then we could figure this out before it gets out of hand and someone else gets hurt.


	3. Hello, Brooklyn

**Authors Note:**** Read and review please! It makes me happy ;-)**

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does.

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**Somewhere between Colorado and Oregon-Saturday- 12:03pm**

**Ryan's POV**

Driving 15 hours with only two stops can take a lot out of you. I had pulled into an almost empty parking lot bout 15 minutes ago just to rest for a little while. I considered myself lucky that nothing supernatural had happened to me as I drew nearer to Skeleton Creek. It was only logical, since she was closer to the dredge, that Sarah was getting more attacks than me. Ever since I busted my leg up at the dredge two months ago, Sarah and I had been experiencing 'attacks' from whatever was haunting the dredge. Whether it was nightmares, fainting spells, or hallucinations, they hit us hard when we least expected it. I'll never forget the time Sarah chanced coming to my house, in broad daylight, because she had a 'vision' of her hitting me with her car. She had swerved off the road and was completely shook up when she knocked on my door. I hung out with her until we saw the tow truck come down the street (I hid her in my room) before getting her out of there as fast as I could. Looking back now, it was really insensitive, but if my parents knew that she had been there… I didn't even want to know. My thoughts of Sarah were cut short by a shaking sob. It took me a minute to realize that I should be the only person in the car. Slowly, I turned to my right. Sarah was sitting in the passenger seat, crying softly.

"Ryan." She whimpered, tears falling down her cheeks and into her lap.

I wanted so desperately to reach out and touch her, to ask her what was wrong, but I knew it wasn't real. I put my head in my hands, focusing on by breathing, willing the image to go away. It was working until the not-real Sarah climbed into my lap and pried my hands away from my face with her too-cold hands. My eyes snapped open to see Sarah's tear streaked face right in front of mine.

"Help me, Ryan."

I opened my mouth then closed it again, my expression probably resembling that of a fish.

"Help me."

"I…"

Her face began to twist, and suddenly it wasn't Sarah. It couldn't even be described as human. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I could only sit there and let myself pass out as my oxygen was cut off by a hold on my throat that I knew wasn't really there. Then I woke up. It was safe to say that I was pretty much scared out of my mind. It took me five tries to get the key in the ignition, three tries to turn said key, and it took all of my self control not to speed out of the parking lot like a maniac. Two hours. I could see Sarah in two hours. I got onto the parkway and settled into a safer speed when I felt something dripping down my face. Looking, in my rearview mirror, I realized it was blood.

**Skeleton Creek, Oregon-Saturday-2:15pm-Sarah's Room**

I studied myself in the mirror, wondering when I had changed from the ambitious, happy seventeen year old girl to a scared and tired looking one. I'd cut my long dirty blonde hair short so that it just reached my collarbone, started wearing heavy eye makeup, gotten significantly thinner, and suddenly started to dress only in dark colors. I rolled my eyes at my reflection, every parent's dream, right? For their daughter to go even more completely insane then she already was? I also became even more disinterested in my schoolwork than I already was, my grades were rapidly dropping. I was sent to the guidance counselor numerous times and drilled about my "attitude", "mood swings", and "sudden drop in academics". Her words, not mine. I answered in monotonous, single-syllable answers and would eventually be given a pass back to class, which I would use to roam the school until I felt like showing up. (Honestly, what's the point of giving out passes if no one bothers to read them?) The only thing that still held my interest was filming. My favorite activity these days was going around town and trying to find and document any of the mysterious 'birdie' symbols. They were very important if we ever wanted to learn what the crossbones actually was. It was hard for Ryan and I to talk over the phone because long-distance calls ran up our cell phone bills and would make it obvious to our parents that we were keeping in contact. I also had to keep my footage to myself until my parents got a little less strict. They were starting to check my camera footage to make sure that I wasn't still going out to the dredge. They had already confiscated what they thought was all of my earlier footage on the dredge. They were mistaken. Always two steps ahead, I'd saved all of the footage, along with the e-mails Ryan and I had sent to each other to a flash drive and hid it in my ridiculously vast CD collection. Unless my parents wanted to go through 300 plus rock, heavy metal, and techno disc cases, the flash drive was safe. I hadn't looked at the footage since the day before Ryan and I went to the dredge for the last time. I was waiting for a safe time to look at it without any interruptions from the parental units. I was itching to get back to it though. There was a ton of stuff that still didn't add up, and I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I had missed something somewhere. It was killing me that I couldn't look. It was killing me that I didn't have Ryan to puzzle through this with me. I was pulled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door. Since my parents weren't home, I jogged downstairs to go answer it.

"Coming!" I yelled, when they knocked again.

I struggled with the lock, pulled the door open and almost passed out.

"Ryan?!"


	4. Arizona

**Authors Note****: **

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon- Saturday- 3:15pm- Sarah's House**

**Ryan's POV**

It was worth risking my parents trust just to see Sarah's face light up and throw her arms around me. I hugged her back with the same intensity.

"You came here just because you were worried about me?" She asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah." I said back a bit awkwardly, looking down to stare at the floor.

There was a long silence before Sarah pulled me further into the house.

"Come on! You don't want to spend your time here standing in my doorway do you?"

I trudged after her as she ran up the steps two at a time. I couldn't help but smile when I saw her room. It was the same as always, all of her computer equipment was running, causing a soft humming noise to fill the room. Posters of Dice, her favorite band lined the walls as well as some of her own artwork. I smiled when I saw the picture of the birdie, the symbol that stood for gold. Everything revolved around gold. My eyes flicked over to Sarah who was still staring at me in disbelief.

"You cut your hair." I said and she laughed nervously.

"Yeah, I had a brief emotional breakdown and chopped it off."

"It doesn't look that bad." I said going over and tugging playfully on one of her short pigtails.

She laughed and batted my hands away.

"You're just saying that so I won't go all hysterical, crying girl on you." She said falling back onto her bed.

I sat across from her on her computer chair and watched, amused as she tried to blow her bangs out of her face. Finally she gave up and sat upright, looking at me with serious eyes.

"So what are we going to do about our little ghostly problem?"

"I don't know." I answered, spinning slowly in the chair.

"Well we have to do something soon, because if I get one more nosebleed, the nurse is going to talk to my parents."

I rolled my eyes.

"That would go over well."

"I know, right? Its like 'hey mom and dad, remember the dredge you forbade me from going to? Well, funny story, turns out it was haunted and now since Ryan and I pissed of the ghost, he's giving me nosebleeds.' That would be the best conversation ever."

"So what do you think we should do?" I asked, stopping the chair and looking at Sarah seriously.

"We have to figure out if Joe Bush's death was really an accident, what the crossbones is and it's connection to the dredge, _and_ we have to find out what gold has to do with all of this." she stated confidently.

"And how do you suggest we go about doing that?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it again.

"I have no idea." she said with a sigh, falling gracefully backwards onto the bed once more.

I flopped down next to her and we both stared at the ceiling deep in thought. I looked over at Sarah and it looked like she was struggling to stay awake.

"I think we should start with the crossbones. If we figure that one out, it will probably be easier to figure out the rest." I said still looking at Sarah with concern.

"Mmhm. I have some footage of Main Street and some other places that we can look through for the birdie…" she said distractedly, her voice trailing off.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah… I'm just tired."

"Get some sleep okay? I'll wake you up before you're parents get here." I said, getting off the bed.

Sarah nodded and closed her eyes. Just as I was about to leave the room, she grabbed my wrist.

"How long are you staying?"

"I have to leave Wednesday night."

"Okay." Sarah said sleepily, dropping my wrist and turning over.

I walked over to her desk and wrote her a note, slipping in under her pillow before leaving the house.

**Sarah**

**Meet at the blue rock tomorrow at 10.**

**See you there**

**-R**


	5. Barely Legal

**Authors Note:**** So that's all the old stuff! I apologize for any grammar errors in the previous chapters; I tried to fix them up as best I could. So now we're going into unfamiliar territory. Scared? I am! R&R!!!!**

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon –Sunday, 8:57am-Sarah's Room.**

I was awake, before noon, for the first time since Ryan had moved away. It took me about an hour to get ready, which meant I had an hour to look at footage (FINALLY) before I had to meet Ryan. I grabbed my favorite Dice CD and took the hidden jump drive out of the case. Jamming it in my computer, I waited impatiently for it to load up. When it was finally done rendering, I put it on play by play and began scouring it for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing, nothing, nothing…Wait, WHAT do we have here?! I froze the frame, which was of the library, and zoomed in on a black blob below the sign. It was a black crow. Crow. Birdie. Am I the ONLY one who sees a connection?! I'd been passing the library at least once a day for the entire time that I lived here and I've never given it a second thought. I couldn't wait to show Ryan. I spent the rest of the hour I had, cleaning up the frame until it was clear as day before printing the picture out. Then I quickly saved the file to my zip drive, re-hid it, and jogged down the stairs, flying out the front door in the direction of the blue rock before anyone could ask where I was going. The blue rock is a landmark that is exactly halfway between mine and Ryan's house…well if you take Main Street. If you were coming from _my _house, then there was a short cut. Ryan figured that out eventually and didn't seem _too_ miffed about it, so we never changed it. He was waiting for me when I got there, leaning on what used to be the railroad platform.

"Wow! You beat me for once!"

"Yeah, I got up early just to have the satisfaction." He said sarcastically.

I laughed, hugging him tightly before plopping down behind the blue rock.

"I have something to show you!" I said in a sing song voice, taking the picture of the black crow thingy out of the folder I brought.

"Is that…?" Ryan started to ask, sitting next to me.

"A birdie? I believe so."

"Wow…that was kind of obvious. I feel sort of dumb now."

I swatted him on the arm, playfully.

"So, what does it mean?" He asked, rubbing hid offended appendage.

"I don't know yet…I don't want to chance my parents finding anything, so all of the really important stuff you sent me is on separate jump drive that I hid in the ceiling.

Ryan looked over at me, amused.

"_In_ the ceiling?"

"Yeah. I cut out a hole, put it up there, then put the piece back in and painted back over it." I explained over Ryan's laughter.

"Wow…that's a lot of security."

"_I_ thought it as a good idea. Besides, this whole thing made me paranoid.

Ryan stopped laughing

"Tell me about it."

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I continued where I left off.

"My parent's are going to this party thing tonight at the Town Hall. I figured it would be a good time to break out my new dredge footage and go back over it. I'm _positive_ we missed something."

"Sounds good." Ryan said, nodding.

I bit my lip, not really sure what his reaction was going to be about what I said next.

"I also think, since you're here and all, that sometime before you leave, we should go back out there…"

He didn't have to ask what I meant.

"Are you sure? After what happened last time?"

"We have too. There has to be some _reason_ why Joe Bush is still in there, something he's hiding or protecting. We have to find out what it is."

"Okay, fine…but look at the footage first so we know that we're actually looking for _something_. I don't want to go back there if there's no reason."

"Deal." I said.

We spent the better part of an hour just talking about our lives in general. Apparently, Canon City was pretty boring, no haunted structures or secret organizations there. I got a lecture from Ryan about my grades. My education was more important than this, did I not want to have the chance of getting into a good media arts college, blah, blah, blah…

Finally around noon, we decided to head to a nearby café and get some food. Luckily, no one noticed Ryan, and if they did, they didn't say anything. I decided that I should go and check in with my parents so they wouldn't ask a million questions, and Ryan went beck to the motel he was staying at. The second I walked through my front door, the interrogation began.

"Where have you been all day?" My mother asked, her arms crossed.

"Out." I answered back, doing my best to sound bored.

"Let me see your phone and your bag."

I rolled my eyes, forking over my phone, which was clean, and my bag, which contained a sketchbook, some colored pencils, an eyeliner stick, and an empty pocket folder. The picture of the birdie was safely with Ryan.

My mother nodded, giving me my things back.

"Your father and I are leaving in an hour and a half."

"Bye." I said, running up the steps two at a time and collapsing on my bed.

I grabbed my IPod off my nightstand, put my headphones in, and blasted Dice until I saw my parent's headlights leave the driveway. Finally. Jumping off my bed, I grabbed the razor blade that I had hidden between the mattress and box spring of my bed and ran over to my closet. Climbing on one of the shelves, I cut through the layer of paint I had used to keep my hiding place covered, and after a bit of feeling around, grabbed my flash drive. Grinning to myself I plugged it in. As I was waiting for it to load, the doorbell rang. I ran downstairs and let Ryan in.

"You look very hyper." He commented as I skipped back to my room.

"I _am_ hyper…and excited."

He laughed and sat next to me as I started up the footage. I skipped the day when he had the accident for obvious reasons…neither of us wanted to relive that. I also skipped the day we got trapped in the room for the same reason. Finally after about two hours of frame by frame searching, we saw something. There was a lever, a lever that seemed to have no purpose.

"It probably doesn't even do anything." Ryan said.

"Then why is it there?"

To that, he didn't have an answer.

"There's only one way to find out."

Ryan groaned.

"Tomorrow night…we're going to the dredge."

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**A/N:** **Reviewing makes updates come faster!**


	6. Decoy

**Authors Note: I know, I know, spare me the yelling. It's been awhile…again. The past couple of days, however, I've been getting reviews and that motivated me. I'm determined to finish this story. I deleted two of my other hiatus ones and I'm only working on one more. I can do this. I'll put a brief recap in so you don't have to go back and reread everything. Onward!!**

Disclaimer- I don't own anything related to Skeleton Creek. Patrick Carman does

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**Previously on My Life Would Suck Without You…**

_**Ryan's back in Skeleton Creek and answers are coming fast. The discovery of the Crossbones birdie outside the library and the sighting of a seemingly useless lever on footage from inside the dredge are two new and very promising leads that bring Sarah and Ryan one step closer to the answer to Skeleton Creek's mysteries. With less than three days until Ryan has to return to Colorado, there's only one thing left to do. A trip to the dredge.**_

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon – Monday - 4:30pm – Ryan's Motel Room**

**Ryan POV**

No. No way. There was absolutely no way I was going back there. We'd already pissed off Joe Bush enough; there was no need to make it worse. At the same time, I knew we had to. If we didn't, we might never know what's going on and Sarah and I would be getting nosebleeds for the rest of our lives. Speaking of Sarah she'd been trying to convince me all through Monday night and the better part of the morning that nothing bad was going to happen. I pointed out that that she'd said the exact same thing last time, and we'd almost suffocated, but she promised it would be different. I was starting to wonder if she had a death wish. My phone vibrating on the dresser shocked me out of my pacing and nearly gave me a heart attack. Thinking it was Sarah _again, _ I didn't bother glancing at the caller ID before picking up.

"Hello?"

Nothing but static and the sound of heavy breathing greeted me on the other line. My blood ran cold and I willed my brain to tell the rest of my body to hang up and forget this ever happened, but something made me stay on the line.

"Look, just leave us alone." I said to the empty space, trying to sound authoritative instead of scared out of my mind.

The breathing changed into a bad impression of my dad's voice.

"Don't go into the dredge, kid. You'll be sorry."

Panicking, I hung up the phone and frantically dialed Sarah's cell number. It went straight to voice-mail. As though that confirmed some sort of unspoken fear, I grabbed my keys off the night stand and raced to my car. I had to go find Sarah; my gut was telling me that something was wrong…

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**Skeleton Creek, Oregon – Monday – 4:47pm – Library**

**Sarah POV**

I stood in front of the library for a good five minutes, just staring at the birdie. I wanted to smack myself for being so stupid. It had been _right there _the whole time and I'd never noticed it before. I walked into the stuffy building, ignoring Gladys, the librarian's suspicious glare and made my way to the back where the computers were. I logged in using a face Skeleton Creek High School ID and quickly put up a simple firewall in case any of the guys back in tech surveillance decided to snoop around my server. I pulled up a number of different search engines and searched for the same thing on each of them; Skeleton Creek Dredge blueprints and floor plan. I wanted to be prepared this time; I wasn't going to be responsible for another accident. Locking down my computer while the searches loaded, I proceeded to the part of the library here they kept all of the old, dusty, and poorly organized documents. Stuff like old newspapers, censuses from previous decades, and most importantly, blueprints from every structure in Skeleton Creek. Unfortunately, these documents couldn't b checked out which is why I was searching for an internet copy. I just wanted something to compare it to. All of the ton's blueprints were stored in those giant poster tubes and were arranged in no particular order on the shelves. In fact, it looked like someone had just dumped them there. Taking a deep breath, I scoured each shelf, my eyes beginning to bug out from reading the fine print on the labels. This is why I was such a computer person. At least on laptop, desktop, or cell phone l could increase the text size. Glancing at my watch, I held back a groan. I'd been sitting here for almost an hour and it was starting to get late. We needed to get out to the dredge tonight so we'd have a couple of days to research the crossbones a little more and go through the footage. I was about to go get a step ladder to search the higher shelves when I tripped and smacked my head into a rather rickety shelf, not only succeeding in giving myself a killer headache, but also knocking over two shelves worth of tubes in the process. Shrieking in frustration, I picked up a tube that had fallen in my lap and went to hurl in across the room. Good thing I looked at the label first. It was the blueprints from the dredge, go figure. Deciding to leave the mess for Gladys, I skipped—yes skipped back to my computer and froze. Leaning over the monitor was the devil herself. Gladys had apparently unlocked the old desktop and was trying without success to break my firewall. Deciding to use the innocent and confused law abiding citizen approach, I but on my best clueless face before addressing the hag;

"Um, excuse me? I was using that computer."

Gladys stiffened at the sound of my voice and turned around slowly.

"What do you have there?" Gladys snapped, ignoring my previous statement.

"Blueprints of Town Hall. School project." I answered, keeping up the ditzy façade

"Let me see." Gladys demanded, holding out a bony hand."

I forked over the tube, which actually was of town hall. I'd taken the dredge blueprints out and switched them with the ones for Town Hall for security purposes. Now I was glad I did, I just had to pray that Gladys didn't actually open the tube. Luckily, she wasn't that smart…or didn't think _I _was that smart because she didn't check.

"Fine, take it with you. I don't need the likes of you snooping around in my library."

I nodded and shot her a thousand watt smile before logging out of my computer after discreetly wiping my activities from it, picking up my bag, and getting out of there before she changed her mind. Old witch. As I made my way back to my car, I turned on my cell, gasping when I saw that I had over 20 missed calls, all of them from Ryan. I was about to call him, when someone grabbed my wrist from behind and slammed me back against the drivers side of my car. Wincing in pain, I cracked an eye open and saw Ryan looming over me…only it wasn't Ryan. I screwed my eyes shut again, willing the hallucination to go away but it didn't. Instead, it began to talk.

"Give it back."

"Please…just leave me alone." I pleaded, trying to wriggle loose of not Ryan's grip.

"Give it back. Now, or I'll break your arms."

I'd managed to pull my arm up enough to grab the car door handle. In one swift motion, I yanked with all of the strength I had, throwing off the Ryan apparition. With a cry of success I scrambled into the car, locking the door behind me. I screamed when "Ryan" Threw himself against the passenger side, probably leaving a good sized dent.

"Don't go to the dredge, Sarah. If you know what's good for us, you won't go." Ryan threatened, his face morphing into that of Old Joe Bush. I looked away, my sleeve immediately going to my nose to staunch the blood I knew was there. The air around me got significantly warmer and I knew it was gone. With shaking hands, I started my car and took off for my house. We needed to end this. Soon.

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